What helps households with children in leaving poverty?: Evidence from Spain in contrast with other EU countries

Recent results on poverty in Europe show that households with children have a higher incidence of poverty than households without children. This incidence is not only higher but increasing. The literature on poverty has noted that the events that are most effective in pushing households out of deprivation should largely determine the design of poverty-alleviating social policy. Using longitudinal data for Spain for the 80’s and 90’s we account for the importance of relevant demographic and labour market events in helping households with and without children in leaving a poverty situation decomposing the relevance of each event in that generated by labour market policies and fertility or marriage institutions and welfare state policies implications. Similarly to results for other countries, the events that most help Spanish households in leaving poverty are related to the labour status and changes in employment of household members more than to demographic events. However, we should note that the transitions out of poverty of households with children are most strongly linked to the economic cycle in the economy mainly through labour market events while non-labour income changes appear as more important in determining a potential transition out of poverty of households without children, implying that their transitions are more linked to the social protection system.